Pismo Beach campingFully vaccinated, we finally felt comfortable about hitting the road again. However, being still extremely cautious, we decided to ease ourselves gently into the world again, where social distancing wouldn’t be a problem -- mostly 4WDing on desert and mountain roads. Herb didn’t consider social distancing much of a sacrifice, as he has been doing that his whole life. The more remote the location and the less people there are, the happier he is.

The Lazy Daze can’t bring us to many of those remote places, so he put a lot of time and effort into converting our 4Runner into a camper of sorts, going the extra mile to make me not miss the Lazy Daze so much. I still do, but I have to admit he has done a truly terrific job in making it a really fun and comfortable vehicle to travel in.

Rather than one platform for the both of us to sleep on, mine is about 7 inches lower than his, giving me not quite enough clearance to sit up, but much more than he has - I am a lucky gal! His has to be higher because his platform sits atop a refrigerator, where, in all fairness, his beers are chilling - a tradeoff he thinks is worth taking. He also installed solar panels and a battery which would allow us to charge phones and the car battery when not driving.

Ibex Dunes in Death ValleyHowever, after about 2 or 3 nights sleeping in it, I need (and he agrees) a hotel stop to shower and just be able to sit up in bed. This method has worked out well for us.

So he wooed me into this trip with the promise of an occasional hotel stay and dining out. Plus, the big prize at the end of the trip was to be a visit to our son and his wife’s house in Bishop, where we would reunite for the first time in 5 months. Although Zoom got us through, I was so ready for some real hugs.

So off we went.